Tag Archives: Cumbria

Buttermere

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Lake District September 2009

It wasn’t so long ago now, but it seems like an eternity away when we visited the Lake District for the second time this year. We were very fortunate with the weather and had a wonderful two weeks of hill walking. It was challenging, but also immensely satisfying and despite eating well, I still managed to work my belt down a few notches!

Some of the fells we climbed this time around included:

  • Skiddaw 931 metres (3,054 ft) – after several failed attempts due to bad weather on our previous visit, we finally managed to reach the summit.  Perhaps, it was because it was the first big walk we did on the trip, but it felt like the toughest.  Incredibly windy on top!
  • Catbells 451 metres (1,480 ft) – my most climbed fell and I never get bored of the view from this relatively low climb.  It’s from here I was able to capture some sunrise time lapse sequences.
  • Barrow 455 m (1,494 ft) – one of Catbells’ neighbours.  Not a difficult walk, but still a very rewarding view from the summit.
  • Binsey 447 m (1,467 ft) – another relatively low fell, but with an amazing 360-degree view.  It’s such a shame I took a camera without any memory cards and didn’t get a chance to revisit!
  • Helvellyn 950 metres (3,117 ft) along Striding Edge – Our most exciting walk to date was on England’s third highest peak.  Fantastic views and an exhilarating climb from the Striding Edge to the summit via the loose, rocky face.

Here’s a couple of photos from the trip and a few more over on Flickr.

Striding Edge, Helvellyn

Striding Edge, Helvellyn

Swirral Edge, Helvellyn

Ullswater

All in all, it was a fantastic photo break, but I think I could do with a better way of carrying photography equipment especially when primarily shooting with a combination of a Nikon D700 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens.  That’s a couple of kilos of mass which I need to be able to stow away securely and easily whilst still having it at hand without too much stoppage time.  My trekking rucksack and Lowepro Toploader worked out a little cumbersome at times, but on the whole did the trick.

If you’d like a few suggestions for places to dine whilst in the Lake District, I highly recommend the following:

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A White Lake District

In March, the Mrs and I went to the Lake District for a week-long break, staying in cottage in Bassenthwaite just outside of Keswick. It was a much quieter visit than some of our previous due to the extended snap of cold weather and with it being in the school term.  Unfortunately, the weather at times was just too much and it either prevented me from getting my camera out of my rucksack or it forced us to cut our walks short and head back to shelter.

Amongst our plans was a trek to the Skiddaw summit and another to Helvellyn, but on each occasion the weather stopped us short.  Fortunately, we did have one day that was clear enough for us to talk up Catbells.  The views from up there are amongst my favourite in the Lakes and this visit made it even more so.

I’m looking forward to going back!

Snowy Catbells from William Lee on Vimeo.

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The Highs and Lows of a Weekend in the Lake District

A few weeks ago, at the tail end of October, the missus and I spent a weekend photo-trekking up in the Lake District.  Having had a taste of hill walking from our previous visits, we decided we would step it up a gear and tackle some bigger walks than our last visit up Cat Bells (or is it Catbells?)

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Buttermere, The Lake District, Cumbria

On Saturday, a group of us took a trip up to Buttermere, a stretch of water in the north-west of The Lake District. As we arrived at Saturday lunchtime and the weather was looking a bit gloomy, we stopped for lunch at The Fish Hotel before setting off for a leisurely walk around the lake.

The clouds started to break as we started walking which provided ideal conditions for some landscape photos as patches of sun were rolling over the surrounding mountains. The very bright sky presented a problem in so much it made getting a suitable exposure to preserve all of the visible detail impossible with my 40D and a single exposure. So I set up my tripod and 40D to auto-bracket with the intention of capturing the highlights, mid-tones and low-lights separately so that I could combine them later on using HDR techniques.

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